North Korea has sent containers to Russia that could hold nearly 5 million artillery shells, South Korea’s defense minister Shin Wonsik said in an interview with Bloomberg News, Paralel.Az reports.

South Korea’s defense minister said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely seek even more when he soon visits Pyongyang.

He noted that Seoul has detected at least 10,000 shipping containers being sent from North Korea to Russia, which could hold as many as 4.8 million artillery shells.

Putin is set to visit North Korea as early as next week, the DongA Ilbo newspaper of South Korea has reported. The trip would be his first there since July 2000.